Virtue Ethics in the Ancient World

Phil. 6396, Greek Moral Theory, 1992

Virtue ethics is an approach to ethics that its adherents see as
importantly different from, and superior to, two major modern rival approaches,
utilitarianism and (Kantian) deontic theories. From a few sporadic early writers
and books in the 1950's and 60's, this approach has steadily grown in
popularity until it now claims a number of prominent adherents. Virtue ethics
proponents are now even tackling issues of practical and applied ethics,
arguing for the workability and plausibility of their approach.

What is virtue ethics? For some useful background, students should look
at two survey articles published in the American Philosophical Quarterly:
Gregory E. Pence, "Recent Work on Virtues" (APQ 21: 1984)), and Gregory
Trianosky, "What is Virtue Ethics All About?" (APQ 27: 1990). Also, for a crucial
book that helped launch the new wave of virtue ethics, see Alasdair MacIntyre's
After Virtue (Notre Dame: 1981).

Most modern virtue ethicists acknowledge an important debt to the
ancient Greek moral tradition, particularly to Plato and (even moreso) to
Aristotle. In this course we will study the foundations of virtue ethics in some
important texts of these ancient authors. We will read in Plato very selectively,
an early treatment of one virtue, temperance, in the Charmides, and the first full
account of the so-called unity of the virtues in the Protagoras. We will then read
selections from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics focusing on the nature of moral
virtue and on specific virtues. Though they are far less frequently cited by
modern thinkers, the ancient Greek and Roman Stoics also made extremely
important contributions to the theory of the virtues. In recent years, these Stoic
authors have been given new and improved translations and have also been
subject to increased scholarly attention, highlighting ways in which their
approach to the virtues differed significantly from that of Plato and Aristotle. It
should prove intriguing to see why and how the Stoics were prompted, relatively
early on, to introduce revisions into their predecessors' theories. Perhaps their
critical vantage point on Plato and Aristotle can inspire in us some similar
critical insights as we consider the enthusiastic modern endorsement of "Greek"
approaches to the virtues.